Monday, June 29, 2015

The good folks at Film Geeks and Digital Gym Cinema in San Diego are having a 24-Hour NoirAThon fundraiser July 3 to get a real marquee for this small independent theater. It works sort of like one of those marathons you used to do in high school where you would run a certain number of miles to raise money for the cross-country team. Although technically the sponsorship levels are based on the names of the films being watched, and not how many they get through. Still, the idea is roughly the same. On-board as the main sponsor is and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The Film Geeks contacted TCM in hopes of getting permission to stream TCM's July 3, Summer of Darkness Film Noir offerings. TCM graciously agreed to match dollar for dollar (up to $5000) all donations to the event (through indiegogo.com). They also granted permission to stream TCM at Digital Gym Cinema for the NoirAThon.The funds will go toward a real theater marquee for the venue, including installation, permits, etc. The Digital Gym Cinema is a cool little theater but looking at it from the street, it is a bit of a mystery. It doesn't scream movie theater. In fact, it kind of screams, I wonder what's going on in there. This is what it currently looks like from the street:

But inside is a sweet little theater:

To sweeten the pot, they set a mini-goal of $1200 by the end of the day today (assuming that would be Midnight Pacific time, June 29). If they hit that goal, Miguel Rodriguez (@HIFFSD) has agreed to post a video of himself in drag in his best Noir Femme Fatalle style. Fortunately, he has the gams for it. I just threw a few coins in the kitty, and they are now less than $200 away from the minigoalBeth Accomando (@cinebeth) and Miguel Rodriguez (@HIFFSD) will be live tweeting during the event using the hashtags #NoirSummer and #TCMParty. The cinema will be open for people who want to join them. I plan to join them for at least part of the time, and hopefully, my 15-year-old partner in crime, Jasmine (@CineBopper) will be joining us as well. I might even be tapped for a food run from one of the food and drink sponsors Bread and Cie, Trails Eatery, Pizzeria Luigi's, and Lightning Brewery, who are making sure Beth and Miguel won't starve during the 24-hour NoirAThon.To donate, go to:https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/24-hour-noirathon-film-geeks-investigate-darkness#/story

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Yes, white people need to stop being such dicks.What inspired this is an image that showed up in my facebook feed today:

Of course, my first thought was what a freakin' idiot, but about the same time that thought got out, I noticed the first two or three comments were, it's photoshopped, followed by, Actual photo:

It's one thing to tell a racist joke. It's another thing to tell a bad racist joke. It's entirely another thing to take a bad racist joke and pass it off as the truth. Now, I was just going to end it right there, but when I went back just now to verify what comments were made. I saw one more comment. I hid the identity with a black box. I'm guessing that's the closest the commenter has ever been to any been to anything black. And I sincerely hope that the presence of something black on top of them offends them greatly:

That's your takeaway from this? Even though it's not true and has clearly been demonstrated to be not true, it really is true. Thank you. You couldn't have illustrated my point better:White People Need to Stop Being Such DicksPostscript (updated Jun 24)It has been a week since I posted this. The person I know who shared this never acknowledged that the image was faked, and it is still up on her wall. When it was first shared, I looked at the original post (which also had comments indicating it was a fake). At that time, it had been shared 2,800 and some odd number times. Now, a week later, it has been shared over 13,000 time, well over quadruple in one week. Great.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

I think we need to have a goal in this country. That goal should be that we should try to go one week without a new story surfacing about cops shooting, abusing, or harassing black people. I know that a week is not a very long time but I think you need to start small and build from there. Yes, I do appreciate that being a cop is a very difficult job, but if you can't do that job without shooting, abusing, or harassing black people, maybe you need to find a new line of work. And this bastard, clearly he has seen one too many Lethal Weapon movies, and you know what, clearly he wasn't even paying attention. Riggs and Murtaugh were going after bad guys, not black guys. I realize there's only four letters difference, but seriously they are not the same thing.

Updated June 16Looking at the timestamp on this post, I posted this one week ago today. Since that time, I have seen no new stories about cops shooting, abusing, or harassing black people. Woohoo. However, a new story has surfaced about white woman Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black to get a job at the NAACP. I think I need to be more specific about my goals.

Friday, June 5, 2015

µBlog – Too long to tweet, too short to call a real postI'm taking the TCM/Ball State University course, Into the Darkness: Investigating Film Noir. The first assignment other than reading the syllabus etc. was to look at the following video, of the opening four or so minutes of Fritz Lang's M. We were supposed to look at what contribution it makes to film noir style.

What I am most struck by here is not the way this relates to film noir, but just how well crafted the story-telling is. Basically the entire sequence is exposition, setting up the situation and elaborating on every aspect of it. From the innocence of the children, making a game out of the threat to them, to the adult's paranoia, the one woman appalled by the children making light of the situation, while the other woman is comforted by just knowing they are still there. The adults waiting outside the school, when normally they would probably let the children walk. By the time, you get to the poster at the end, you don't even need to know the details. You already know everything that counts. Yes, there is some film noir imagery, the ominous shadows of the cuckoo clock and the man at the end. What really stands out to me is just damn good story-telling. People aren't explaining the situation. They're reacting to it. Brilliant. I love this movie.